RANTOUL – The Metro East Bears are heading to the American Legion Great Lakes Regional tournament.
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The past two years, the Bears have gotten to the regional as host team under Legion baseball rules. This year, the Bears won their way to Napoleon, Ohio, located some 45 miles from Toledo, where the tournament will be held beginning Wednesday.
They got there coming from behind against Danville, thanks to a four-run fifth inning and two more in the sixth to rally from 5-3 down to defeat Danville 10-6 at Wabash Park to advance to Saturday's Illinois American Legion state final, where they'll face Danville again after they eliminated Barrington 10-5 in an elimination game following the Bears' win.
The final begins at 10:30 a.m., with a second game to follow at 2 p.m. should Danville win. However, Illinois is sending two teams to this year's regional, meaning both Metro East and Danville will be playing again come Wednesday.
“I'm really proud of the kids,” said Bears manager Ken Schaake. “They played hard and didn't lose a beat, even though we had four guys playing out of position today.
“We bounced back well from being behind.”
The Bears took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second when Blake Vandiver led off with a walk before stealing second. With two out, Tate Wargo singled and when the ball got away on a throw, Vandiver scored and Wargo got to second. Danville answered with four runs in the third, highlighted by a Noah Nelson RBI double, but the Bears countered with two in the bottom of the third when Konnar Loewen led off by reaching on an error and Dylan Burris walked. Kade Burns sacrificed both runners over before Joel Quirin hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Loewen and Vandiver singled home Burris to put the Bears to within 4-3 through three innings.
Danville upped the lead to 5-3 on a Chase Vinson homer to right in the top of the fourth and it stayed that way until the Bears came up in the bottom of the fifth. Burns led off with a single and went to third on a Quirin double to right; Corey Price then singled to load the bases to bring up Steven Pattan.
Pattan hit a sharp grounder to short, but threw the ball away to score Burns and Quirin to tie the game, Price moving to third and Pattan ending up on second; Price then gave the Bears the lead when he scored on a wild pitch and Storm Coffman singled to left to bring home Pattan to put the Bears ahead 7-3. Two more runs came for Metro East in the sixth when Burns and Quirin each had one-out singles, with Burns scoring on a Vandiver single before Price doubled in Quirin to make it 9-5 for the Bears.
Danville scored a run in the seventh to make it 9-6, but Metro East got a 10th run in the eighth when Pattan scored on a bases-loaded walk to Loewen. Tate Wargo, who came in to pitch for Burns in the seventh, shut Danville down the rest of the way to send Metro East to the final and the regional.
Burns got the win, throwing 123 pitches in 6.2 innings before giving way to Wargo, who threw 35 pitches in 2.1 innings. Burns dismissed 11 by strikeout while conceding six runs – all earned – on 11 hits; Wargo fanned 1 and blanked Danville the rest of the way.
Price led Metro East, going 3-for-5 from the plate with a double, a RBI and run scored, while Quirin was 2-for-4 with two runs scored; Burris had a run scored, Burns 2-for-3 with two runs scored, Vandiver 3-for-5 with two RBIs and a run scored, Pattan 1-for-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored, Wargo and Coffman both 2-for-4 with an RBI each and Loewen a RBI and run scored.
